Who the hell are you? (a book, read at your own risk)

So few people know. Actually, I don't think anyone really knows the whole truth, no holds barred, honest history that is... well... me. My closest friends have bits and pieces because that's really all I let out or what they've seen me live through first hand - it's hard to break the social stigma of 'you are an abomination'... and I pray you'll forgive me and understand if you happen to read this all. I pray that you'll understand how fucked up I am because of people, situations... and most importantly myself. I pray that I can actually make it through this entire telling. It IS telling to say the least... the kink background, the background for mental instability, the social and other phobias.

I think the only reason I'm doing this is because I'm not sure anyone will actually read the entire damned thing.
I guess I just pray, stick my head between my legs, and kiss my ass goodbye.

I remember learning about 'sex' (not the whole, but the concept) at about five or six years old when some neighbor (much older) 'friends' decided it would be a good idea to take the concepts that they had just heard from mom and/or dad and basically molest me and my friend, John (and have us molest each other). Basically there was no intercourse between any of us, but the memory still stands - and I wish it never happened. I wish I wasn't so damned curious as a kid so that I could have kept innocence longer. At least I don't think that particular instance had any huge repercussions, but I'll judge that one further in a moment.

Maybe I should also mention that I was one of those girls that always wanted a penis. I didn't want to be a boy exactly, but I wanted one of those damned useful things. I mean, come on! Stand up to pee! I never really grew out of that 'I wonder if' deal, especially now that I understand there's more uses for the male anatomy and I understand ours is so cumbersome. I don't identify as a particular gender mentally (I know I'm not male in the head either, although that might have been easier), so I'm not trans exactly, but it would be interesting to identify as androgynous or gender queer. Or something. I know there's more digging to be done in that headspace that I'm afraid to even open up to.

Back to the story.

The first time I realized I was interested in women was when I was in second grade. I saw my mom changing clothes and became obsessed with visioning older women without their clothes.... highly inappropriate when you think of the context of teachers, doctors, pretty much everyone but family. Even then I was a horny little bastard.

Halfway through that year, my family re-located. Dad's job required him to hop around a bunch, so I've spent many wonderful years in adjustment periods to new places before getting carted out to yet another location. Someday I just want to be able to stay in one fucking place for a few good years. Or ten. At any rate, this move was a monster because I was at an age where social bonding is huge. I had tons of friends in my old place... I had several in the in between place (I lived at another location for half a school year before moving to the new one) and absolutely nothing at this new hell. Seriously, it was hell on earth. Small farm population is tough on a kid that didn't start at the school to begin with. Actually, add in personality quirks, ADHD, and a mouth that didn't quit when it should (and didn't understand when another joke could be played on the words that I said), and I was lucky to have one kid feel sorry for me enough to include me in some group activity.

It was worse when the mentally unstable neighbor boy got tossed into the mix. I have a restraining order on the asshole - him and his friends in the grade above me verbally abused me every day for three years straight. A good number of my classmates also partook of the ridicule because they were the old and cool crowd, so there went any chance of 'normal' interaction. I sunk into books and imaginative worlds to escape, which made me act more odd in a dissociative maneuver, because I could bring up hallucinations of a better world. I learned early that it's better to keep to yourself and throw up walls of steel - and don't say anything because it can be twisted into ANY form of material to use for fuel against you. Finally he fucked up by attempting suicide with a game controller, and no one was supposed to know. I was beaten HARD by my parents for threatening him and letting the secret out, but it mostly stopped the problems. Further action was taken after he stalked me everywhere for a month looking for a way to get back at me, and he had to back off. That didn't really help any of the social problems or beginnings of depression in me, but at least I was (semi) safe at that point.

I should also mention that my parents saw none of what was going on here until that point. Mostly it was because they were both working parents - Mom was a sub teacher working on getting into a full time position at the time and dad was always at work and hands off. Neither of them is really cuddly, dad is really socially awkward, and both of them have heavy drinking and anger issues. My form of punishment as a kid was to have stuff thrown at me by mom (including lamps, irons, smacks and her fist to my head and/or jaw) and to be beaten to a pulp by dad. He's a martial artist with temper issues - arm bars, grabbing the muscle body and pulling away from the bone, nerve strikes until I said what he was looking for. While undergoing the treatment at school, I usually came home to yelling and incrimination for not doing well in school work. Not only did I not care at that point because it was all stupid busy work, but I had other worries - like escape from the real world that I lived in, and my first love - dance. Also, my family is known for cruel humor at the expense of each other. Basically I was teased mercilessly about almost everything I did at home too, which didn't help. So I was pummeled both ways and learned best how to lie to live in a false world or shell where I was hidden from the outside. As to my parent's tactics, I really don't blame them.... they had no idea they were making it worse. They stopped wailing on me in middle school at some point when I yelled back that it was abuse, but to this day... if dad starts talking stern like he's going to begin to yell at some point, I hyperventilate. His favorite phrase earlier? "I haven't hurt you yet, so why are you crying? Stop, or I'll GIVE you something to cry about."

So, if you can see a trend, I have social phobias out the ass and schitzotypal personality disorder - a lack of appropriate social connect partnered with dissociation. For the longest time ending sometime at the end of high school, I wouldn't enter a strange building without someone I trusted (short list) leading so I could follow their social ques and behavior. I was mortified of doing anything (including ordering off of a menu) wrong. When I was in a place, I'd be blank until I could pick up on the cues... which I still do to this day. I don't have normal visible cues sometimes and prefer to be in a neutral blank or fill in a cheery, bubbly disposition as a 'safe' face.

At about age 10 (ish) (think fifth grade ish), I ended up with the full sex talk from mom, which only sparked even more oddity. I turned into a little voyeur trying to catch my brother naked (so much for social stigma on incest with a fucked up morality as it was, right?), and started inserting random items into myself to try to understand what it felt like. I also played a little with my best friends from the first school when they came out to visit me that summer via (horrible attempts at) mutual self masturbation. Yup, girl on girl again here. Why mention this? I loved one of them more than the other; we were attached at the hip whenever we could be (even after I moved states over). Insert stigma two - sexual activity was a bad thing to get involved in. I was not right for having done so; I was 'evil' for playing at this context with myself and others. Good people didn't do that until much later, in monogamous (STRAIGHT) relationships when you were considered an adult. I still fight with this one, to this day. Although healthy and normal for everyone else, sex is just WRONG for me, because it wasn't the 'good' or 'right' thing to do. Bad shit happened to those that even thought of it. Social stigma amplified by social phobia = mental disaster. Add cravings and porn addiction and you can insert one hell of a fun mental space for a good long time.

But - back to that really good friend that I 'loved'. In sixth grade, she died. She was on the way to bible study in one of the church vans with a large group when a drunken idiot T boned them at a crossroad. She was ejected 75 feet out the back of the van and was pronounced a vegetable by the EMT's on site. The next day, they pulled the plug. Insert a vendetta on alcohol onto the lunatic ravings.

Every year after that (for seven fucking years running) I had another death to people that I loved.

This was when I started living in that fantasy land all the fucking time. Tack on a fear of not living to see another year/day/month? And not being able to cope with the world at large as it is? Who else that I was close to would not wake up to see tomorrow? Fuck that! I lived in a schitzoid delirium amplified by ADHD and apathy for life in general for several years following. Halfway through middle school I made another move, this time to the school district that my mom had found a full time job in. I didn't do well in school, I made a few (distant) friends, and I was a fucking pathological liar. It was easy to manipulate people and the truth to skate through a few more days, months, or years. I had barriers up a mile thick, and wouldn't let anyone touch me. Not even full hugs; if you were lucky I gave you this half hug thing once every couple of years. I built up a protection of bad-ass that grew as I began to lift enough to make the football players turn heads. I shunned every type of relationship (boyfriend, whatever) because of fear and an ineptitude to understand what was expected and what I should do. As a good friend once said of me, 'you have a Fuck Off sign written across your forehead'

I did let two guys kinda close... one has his own mental problems that he's still fighting through (and I really wish him the best, although he always sees the worst). The second... he cornered me one day, got me to grudgingly give him a half-hug, where he then swung me around and held a knife at my throat. He is all-on schizophrenic and was looking to kill me for a reason that I will never know. I fought to my escape, ran, and watched my back ever since. From that day on (when I was in that mental zone), no one was allowed that close. No one.

But inside, I was still shattered into mental, raving, fragments that I made into repressed slivers. I looked for easy leadership in what my parents told me to do, and I followed blindly after a guilt trip or two. I quit dance even though it was the only way I could express myself at all. Joined sports because my mother said that 'dance would never go anywhere' and that I'd 'be better off if I did something that I might be good at'. Might I add that I was the youngest dancer to reach the ranks I did at the time I did? I didn't understand the concept of 'do what makes you happy' - only 'do what you should'. Except for apathy behavior to everything, I was brainwashed, but I was good... or at least some of the time. When I wasn't a perfectionist mental case, I pole-vaulted 10 feet (State calibre in Ohio at the time). I threw in the top of the state. I ran cross-country (not so hot at that one, but I did it any way). I also lost the weight I gained in depression from those elementary school days of binge eating to feel better - by becoming borderline anorexic. Mom lost 90 pounds through my high school years and has kept them off; I was pushed to do the equivalent (not 90 pounds, but still work down to a stick).

I still fight eating disorders from just not eating to binge eating. While I'm at it, nope, no one but a few friends my age noticed the 'not eating' thing - and they just fed me lunch every now and again by guilting me into it because they bought it.

I also joined other groups by the hordes, to the point that I was the most 'sucessful' slacker with a 2.8 graduating GPA. The only good thing out of those years were four friends that I still (semi) talk to and the theater guild that I joined and found adoptive parent-figures at. [RIP Skip] Everyone saw leadership in me where there was none. Basically, I was really good at living a decent lie. I graduated with honors (despite the horrible GPA) and a boosted class load that they would not have let any other student take. I passed those classes (Calculus independent study, AP Chem, Physics, AP Bio) easily.

But I didn't do everything that mom and dad wanted. I didn't get to the State meet at all. I missed it by one place, a few feet. I wasn't the best. [mom was an athletic star when she was younger - MANY championship wins under her belt. She was offered a chance to play for Harvard, basketball or softball, take her pick. She declined because she 'didn't want to be a laywer'. idiot. Instead she went to Ithica where she had the same offer, and she chose basketball 'because it's more of a challenge'.] I also didn't get any athletic scholarships.

But, when it came to undergrad, it was inevitable that mom made my choice. I knew I was good at science (dad's an engineer and I take after him hard), but most regular science was boring and I was apathetic about most everything at that point except for getting praise for doing what they wanted. I said Veterinary Medicine would be interesting, if only because my only connection to anything 'real' and lasting was to the animal horde at home. So away I went to the University of Findlay, to study to be the first doctor in the family. Mom and dad were so proud.

The first year wasn't so bad. Sure, I had roommate issues (two roommates, two semesters... bueh), but I actually did really well in school and away from home. Classes that entire year were repeats from high school, so life was easy there. The first semester was spent in a tiny mental hole of 'holy hell! what do I do?!?' I finally got out and found some awesome-sauce people that took one look at me and helped my put myself back together in some fashion - they didn't ask questions about my past, they just accepted that I was broken and needed help in 'how to social function!' and 'what are the rules anyway?' I still credit them with a lot of the good stuff that I am today, because they took someone who was absolutely sick of all the shit and helped shovel without even looking down. Thanks, guys. I owe you my life, and I know you guys don't know all of it.

This semester was when I re-learned that I have a need to be held; that I need human contact in order to survive in a semi-happy state. I joined a roommate couple that were all about the whole 'let's f-ing hug for no reason!' and I think someone laughed at me really hard at the look on my face when I finally relaxed enough to hug them back. Or let one of them play with my hair. Or get a body part rubbed out because I was still lifting insane weights. I need and crave that contact, but I still hold back and be still because I don't know the social rules. I pray, someday, someone can understand that after almost 16 years of not letting people touch me because of fear and mental rigidity to a code of 'thou must do what is in the social rules' it hurts so good when I let go. Pet me and I'm fucking gone into a better world, before all this shit went down. I don't really care about any other play, really, because I can find that at any party on the planet. If I let you touch me like that, then you are one of very few that I trust enough to see me and not the masks. For one moment, I'm a squooshed mass of blissful innocence and if I could purr, I would. Enter one new found kink - pet.

As awesome-sauce as that year was, the next one was total shit. I mean, pretty much as bad as my early life.

I started with a roommate that was the closest friend that I could ever have (although we have distanced a lot since), with the prospect of a boyfriend and new, challenging classes. Let's start with the boy.

He was a friend from high school, with his own mental issues at the time (read, the guy with the knife, after mental help). At this point, I still had no clue what the rules were in this case, but I was interested and willing to forgive him because he wasn't like that any more, so I just strung him along from long distance over the summer (I was working in a different state at the time) with the promise that we'd get together at the end of the first week of classes if he'd help me move in and meet everyone out that way (I valued their opinion a ton). Within that week, promises and friendship aside, he ran off with one of the girls that I was 'friends' with at the time after sleeping with her. Yup. So, I wrote that one in blood on my list of fucking assholes and went about my way, working through classes that were much harder than I really wanted to admit and I had no concept of studying.

Several weeks later, my roommate (I knew there was possibly an issue) left because she was suicidal - bipolar being treated for depression and cycling as many as four times a day. I understood she needed help, and am glad she did, but... she was one of the first people I could call close. Papa died, and I was his caretaker for two summers; he meant the world to me, the crotchety old fart with an amazing sense of humor. I came out as bisexual at this point to my friends at Findlay and to myself at the same time because I had a crush on a girl that I'll never be able to have because she's a good friend, a good person, and horribly straight (although very supportive of the LGBT community). Then, with the round out of the semester, I failed Organic Chemistry with a C- (plus, minus system) by two points, and the other girl that helped pick up my sorry ass got booted out for such low performance in school (she was also working almost full time and dealing with an abusive boyfriend. Life blows).

All social connections pretty well severed and my schooling in dire straits... I went into a state of what's called 'double depression'. Basically, from my earlier life, I have what's called Dysthemia, or Minor Depression. Unlike Major Depression which swings to a huge lowered mood compared to a normal prior baseline, Dysthemia is a lowered baseline of mood from a 'normal' average, all the time. Double depression is when a Dysthemic person goes into Major Depression. As I'm sure you can imagine, it wasn't a fun period. I finally bit it, hard, and went to get professional help. My parents are against the whole 'mental illness' thing, and I had a hard time being able to open up to that level to a person without playing them.. which is what I ended up doing to the first counselor in training that I went to go see. It didn't help that she was very good looking and I already hated myself for everything that I was and had turned into; a false shell with no real person inside. I was an absolute monster with very little worth except as a tool for what my family wanted.

I built myself back up, which took several years, professional help, amazing friends that (although not as close as the ones that ended up gone from Findlay, still were sent from the gods) let me have human companionship when I needed to not be alone in a room and began to accept me for what I was wanting and working toward becoming. I made some stupid mistakes when it came to going to strip clubs and/or goth clubbing nights (one for satiation of the sex drive that was still locked in the tight box, the other for the welcoming alternative scene I fit fight into) and neglecting schoolwork, but I really don't regret finding outlets to escape.

The summer following my second year, I got a phone call from the girl that ran off with VinceKnight. She had cheated on him and he was suicidal, looking to end it all with a knife and/or a sword. I helped him get over the pain because I didn't want anyone's blood on my hands. I did it the only way I could - talked him around for a week straight and told him that I would take him. Once he was in help and stable, I left and haven't contacted him since, although he's been after me. I refuse to endanger myself like that again.

So, several years down the line, I didn't get into Vet school because of that failed class. I competed in Track and Field, was 20th in the nation in the hammer throw (D2), but missed going to Nationals by a foot and three places. I'm in a Master's program that's a stepping stone for a PhD, which I plan on getting although I'm still pretty apathetic as to what it'll be in. I still fight ghosts day after day that remind me of what I've done to many people around me that I've manipulated and told so many half truths and full lies to and the hurt that I cause when I don't know what to say or do to express myself so I don't. I still am a pathological liar when it comes to my anti-gay family. I work most days to not slip back into the lies and into the false reality that is the void where time flies because I don't know what the hell's going on. I'm taking treatment for ADHD, which actually keeps my mind in reality compared to elsewhere, for the most part. I'm still an apathetic, lazy lump that, if I would exert myself, could do great things. My hardest fight that I have yet to win is to get over the apathy and the disillusion, and get back to 'life'. To do something for the long haul and actually care about it throughout the whole process.

I have done tremendously better with building social connections at a few levels, although I'm still scared as fuck when it gets to the ones that are closer because I know that, if they are what I need, they're going to leave at some point because I still am not able to stay in just one place. It's really really fucking hard for me to give up anyone that I have to leave behind - if I'm not there with you at some point during the year to keep up with your life and you with mine, I'm terrible at keeping connections where they were because I still live in the here and now. I still cope with the current problem, then worry about the bigger heap just on the other side of it. I still have absolute moments of 'I fucking hate that monster' - the monster inside that feels all the rage for what has become of me and all the hunger for everything raw and ugly and terrible (pouncing on the beautiful women that I walk by with or without their consent, kicking the shit out of someone or something, etc.) It's fucking raw -and I refuse to let it out. I absolutely refuse to bring the demon to the surface because I don't know what will be left standing if I do. I still live my life in fear of 'what if', 'what next', 'who do I have to protect from the darkness because I've already been swallowed and back; they deserve so much better'. My biggest fear is 'who am I going to end up hurting next...'

Maybe, someday, I won't be so afraid.